Real-life BFG

The High Impulse Weapon System is an experimental design that amounts to a shoulder-launched mortar, and is the biggest man-wieldable weapon you’ll probably ever see outside of anime:

Sounds a little less dangerous to folks behind you than other means of reducing recoil: Recoilless rifle - Wikipedia

I seriously thought you were talking about a dude that sneaked up to your window and blew dreams through it with an enormous trumpet.

That makes two of us.

Three.

And since, out of the three letters, I assume the weapon is certainly not Friendly, I’m now wondering what the abbreviation means?

BFG = Big Fucking Gun.

I think the military had the term first, but it because known in popular culture when the video game Doom had the BFG 9000 as it’s ultimate weapon.

EDIT: Who the heck is this trumpet guy you all are talking about?

I have no idea WTF this means, but it may be the funniest thing I’ve ever read.

Four. Now I’m disappointed.

:eek: You didn’t read The BFG by Roald Dahl?

The BFG is the Big Friendly Giant. He is actually not very big for a giant, the others are much bigger and meaner too. The BFG is very nice. He uses his extremely large ears to hear good dreams, which catches with a net and then blows into children’s bedrooms with his trumpet so they dream them.

It’s a fantastic book. I’d recommend it for adults too! (It includes giants fighting and discussions of farts, honestly, fiction hardly gets any better than this.)

Five. I think it’s interesting how many Dopers knew of one, but not t’other.

They need to work on the recoil on that weapon. A weapon that knocks you back 2 feet when used properly and knocks you on your ass that easily is not going to be very effective on the battlefield. I see alot of shoulder injuries in its future.

Not only have I not read it, I’ve never heard of it. I do have some Dahl in the library (the Twits, the Magic Finger, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), but I have frankly never heard of this book.

Right, that’s it! Go get your jammies on right now, I’ll light the fire and see you down here in 5 minutes.

Settles into armchair

Clears throat

*The Witching Hour

Sophie couldn’t sleep. A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right on to her pillow. The other children in the dormitory had been asleep for hours. *

[/hijack & apologies]

Funny, cause I’ve seen a video of a guy in Afghanistan firing a 60mm mortar from the hip, and it didn’t seem much/any worse than this.

Six.

I’ve been using it to read myself to sleep for the past week or so.